Day #10: “The aggregation of marginal gains”

Most of us think of success as a one time event. Something that just happens. We often hear the expression ‘overnight success’.

We have this idea that to become successful, we need to radically change our lives by 1000% in one day. We would prefer a strategy that promises fast large scale changes to one that provides steady,consistent but slow improvements.However, if you create a 1 percent improvement in one area of your life today and tomorrow do the same thing, the gains for improving a thing by 1 percent for 70 days is not 70 per cent.There is an overall compounded improvement.The same applies to when you let something deteriorate by just 1 percent.The effect is felt sooner than expected. This is known as the ability to aggregate marginal gains.

In 2009, a man named Dave Brailsford presented a plan to the British government to build a cycling team capable of producing Britain’s first ever winner of the Tour de France. He thought it would take four years. His plan was based on an approach he described as, “aggregating marginal gains–how small improvements can have a huge impact on the overall performance of the team.And his plan, which resulted in Sir Bradley Wiggins becoming the first British winner of the Tour de France, did not take four years. It took three.

Dave Brailsford’s approach which is responsible for success of the British Cycling team both in Tour de France and the Beijing and current dominant performance of Britain in the cycling world, is based on improving every area of the cyclist’s experience by 1 percent over time. This of course requires a lot of discipline.

Now I find myself thinking,if this can be applied to a cycling team, perhaps it could be applied to improving human life experience. So think of how this can radically change how you look at your personal development or achievement of personal goals today. What area of your life would you like to improve by 1% everyday? What would you like to do everyday to start this 1 percent improvement?